Spill prevention and preparedness
Working to protect the Hudson and its communities from the threats posed by anchor strikes and spills
The challenge
The Hudson is used extensively for shipping, including potentially hazardous cargo such as heating oil, crude oil, and other petroleum products. Spills are a real risk. In December 2012, an oil tanker ran aground near Albany with 12 million gallons of crude oil on board. While the ship’s double hull prevented a spill, it exposed the inadequacy of spill response capabilities for such a massive potential disaster. In April 2005, a barge carrying 3.1 million gallons of gasoline ruptured near New Hamburg, spilling gasoline into the Hudson. Spills damage vital Hudson River habitats, and could contaminate drinking water for the 100,000 people who rely on the Hudson as their water source.
Anchorages
Commercial vessels anchored in the water can present hazards to public safety and boating, pose spill risks, cause noise and light pollution, threaten submerged cables, damage critical habitat areas, and affect waterfront tourism.
Riverkeeper and the public have made it clear that we want strict limits on where, and for how long, commercial vessels are allowed to anchor in the Hudson River. Often carrying hazardous cargo, these large ships can pose a threat to drinking water supplies, as well as the river’s ecosystem.
There are currently seven anchorage grounds in the Hudson River where large commercial vessels are allowed to anchor: three near Upper Manhattan, three near Yonkers, and one west of Hyde Park.
Advocates, communities, and government agencies all have significant concerns over the risks that anchored vessels pose to endangered sturgeon, community waterfront plans, and drinking water sources. Riverkeeper will ensure that the public’s concerns are fully considered in any future anchoring regulations, policies or legislation.
Drew Gamils
Senior Attorney
Spill preparedness and prevention
The Hudson is used extensively for shipping, including potentially hazardous cargo such as heating oil, crude oil, and other petroleum products. Spills are a real risk. In December 2012, an oil tanker ran aground near Albany with 12 million gallons of crude oil on board. While the ship’s double hull prevented a spill, it exposed the inadequacy of spill response capabilities for such a massive potential disaster. In April 2005, a barge carrying 3.1 million gallons of gasoline ruptured near New Hamburg, spilling gasoline into the Hudson. Spills damage vital Hudson River habitats, and could contaminate drinking water for the 100,000 people who rely on the Hudson as their water source.
Bomb trains
Railroads hug large stretches of the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers, and other tributaries. Accidents from trains carrying toxic and high-hazard flammable materials put the river and its communities at risk. The country has witnessed several massive explosions after derailments of the most dangerous of these trains, nearly mile-long “unit” trains carrying volatile Bakken crude oil in outdated and inadequate cars more suited for transporting non-hazardous products.
The catastrophic train accident that occurred in East Palestine, Ohio in 2023 is a reminder of the risks faced in the Hudson Valley and in New York State from freight trains carrying a range of products. Both the Hudson and Mohawk Rivers have railroad tracks that hug banks for hundreds of miles. These are major routes for the transport of hazardous materials like oil and chemicals.
A derailment like the one in Ohio would be a disaster in our region, since spill response, including containment and recovery, to a similar accident is near impossible in a moving water system like the tidal Hudson. Derailments along the Mohawk River in 2023 and Hoosic River in 2024 show how real the threat is. While the Mohawk derailment involved empty tanker cars, the Hoosic derailment spilled plastic pellets that washed up some 60 miles away in the Hudson River.
- Focus areas
- Drinking waterWater qualityHabitat and wildlife
What we're doing
Anchorages
Through action and advocacy, we support legislation that helps limit the impact of anchorages in the Hudson, such as the 2024 Hudson River Protection Act 2024 Hudson River Protection Act, which seeks to permanently ban the creation of additional anchorages between Yonkers and Kingston.
Our advocacy efforts have drummed up a groundswell of public comments on new rules, regulations and policies concerning anchoring in the Hudson River, generating tens of thousands of responses in favor of protecting the Hudson and its communities, as well as mitigating any environmental impacts from anchorages and large commercial vessels.
Riverkeeper is in close communication with the Coast Guard, which oversees anchorages on the Hudson, alerting the agency when its policies are illegal or threaten the public and the environment. Our actions have led the agency to reverse course on a number of proposals and policies, including the Coast Guard’s policy to redefine the boundaries of the Port of New York to exclude the portion of the Hudson River located north of the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge.
Additionally, our patrol boat program acts as a watchdog on the water, monitoring large boat traffic, reporting anchoring violations, spills, or contamination, as well as observing general trends and commercial vessel behavior.
Improving rail safety and spill preparedness
Riverkeeper works to highlight the risks of hazardous rail shipping along the Hudson and several of its tributaries, and improve spill prevention and response capability. We are a longtime advocate for greater rail safety measures, and have called for safety retrofits and infrastructure upgrades to both freight rail cars and the bridges and tracks they travel over in recent years, most notably during the peak of crude oil shipments from the Bakken oil-producing region through the Hudson Valley on the way to coastal refineries.
Riverkeeper has also successfully called for spill prevention and response planning by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on the Mohawk River, and the U.S. Coast Guard on the Hudson River Estuary. Both rivers have railroad tracks that hug banks for hundreds of miles - major routes for the transport of hazardous materials like oil and chemicals.
To help increase agencies’ ability to respond to a disaster, in 2024 we joined forces with the EPA, NYSDEC, and local responders to participate in the design and execution of a “spill drill” that focused on a railroad derailment scenario resulting in a petroleum spill into the Mohawk River, with potential impacts to the river’s drinking water intakes and habitats.
Prior to this, we worked with the Coast Guard to ensure that Hudson River habitats and drinking water are the focus of spill prevention and response activities. In addition to participating in spill drills and commenting on spill response plans, we have worked with the “Hudson 7,” the communities that draw drinking water from the Hudson River, to help them advocate for better spill prevention and response activities from state and federal agencies.
Since prevention is key, Riverkeeper advocates for rail safety policies at the federal level, which would be the most impactful, and for state-level liability legislation to help assure effective clean-ups in case of a disaster.
Updates
Blog
June 25, 2024
2024 State Legislative Summary: Some key environmental wins despite resistance
In the press
April 22, 2024
Kayakers Spot Oil on Hudson River Week Before Reported Con Ed Spill
Blog
April 15, 2024
How to identify and report plastic pellets from recent railroad spill
Press release
August 4, 2023
Mohawk River train derailment highlights need for rail safety, spill prevention
History
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